"O’Dell and the director, Karen Carpenter, throw one emotional punch after another; most of them land, but the barrage may leave you reeling. Thankfully, a talented cast, particularly Bryan Batt as Holt’s agent, is there to prop you up."
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The title ‘Pay the Writer’ might seem to indicate a ripped-from-the-headlines play about Hollywood strikes. Unfortunately, no. Watching Fran Drescher square off with the studio bigwigs would probably have more sizzle than this slick but glib drama about a literary lion in late winter...The toggling between time periods, with Bruston providing great gusts of transitional narration, tends to drain the play of momentum.”
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“None of it is enough to make ‘Pay the Writer’ a story audiences will much care about. For all the personality the actors bring to their characters, this is still a play about a writer and his agent — navel-gazing inside baseball of the worst variety.”
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“As a novelist, Tawni O'Dell has scaled the best-seller list and been welcomed into the golden circle of Oprah's Book Club. As a playwright, she has a long way to go before similar accolades come her way... Pay the Writer is a rambling, unfocused, undramatic account of the torments of being a successful novelist. Well, write what you know, I suppose, although, since O'Dell is not an aging, ailing Black man ravaged by Norman Mailer-ish excesses, she may be stretching things a bit. This probably accounts for the unremitting tone of falsity that underlines the play's action.”
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“Indeed, for a work about writing, publishing, and literary legacies, there is a certain amount of irony that after attending ‘Pay the Writer,’ I was mostly thinking about the actors.”
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Directed by Karen Carpenter, "Pay the Writer" by best-selling novelist Tawni O’Dell is slick and superficial but entertaining and engrossing. The story of the 45 year friendship between an ultimately successful gay literary agent and an unknown African American novelist who becomes celebrated and wealthy plays like a novel or mini-series with its 13 scenes and many two-character encounters but is ultimately satisfying by its denouement. The high powered cast plays it to the hilt, belying the fact that the characters are superficial and stereotyped, which, of course, doesn’t make it untrue.
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“The title ‘Pay the Writer’ has a timeliness to it due to the current strike between the motion picture studios and members of the Writers Guild of America. That situation has nothing to do with this play, but it being the mantra of the striking writers can’t help but permeate the discussion of what a writer is worth.”
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“These are all excellent toe holds for a story, but the script is on the flat side. It moseys along with very little action and a lot of reminiscing. A lot of exposition. A lot of explaining...Lots of laughs and a few sighs of empathy as Bruston guided us through what was really his story all along...On the night in question the show I saw disappointed my high hopes.”
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